Why is gambling with citizens health and encouraging predatory and extortionist behavior by hospitals and insurance conglomerates on people who are sick and vulnerable an obvious states issue, while stuff like 'right to have guns in your house' is a federal law.
Well, because the latter was specifically in the constitution, and is key to our ability to protect ourselves from tyranny. The former was not in the constitution. If you don't like it you can feel free to amend the constitution. It's been done, and it will be done again.
Funny, I actually made that point once (when I was feeling particularly sarcastic). It was rather derogatory and went something like this "Hmm interesting... all these people in West Virginia seem to hate voting for better healthcare and love voting to get more guns, so maybe their answer to healthcare problem is rational after all and it is to just put those guns to good use".
Wait, but two post above you said that government involvement is bad because it will turn emergency rooms to DMV. I thought state of Massachusetts runs the DMV, and hence they would be utterly unqualified to give health care? Am I getting something wrong?
why the downvote? there is nothing in the constitution about the federal government providing healthcare. Ergo, based on the 10th amendment it is the right of the states. Massachusetts can do whatever they want. The federal government cannot.
Everybody already knows about the existence of a "states' rights" opinion on health care, and it's not consistent with Republicans' ideology on the subject. You were downvoted accordingly for making statements that have no basis in reality. You should reconsider believing or sharing your own opinions in the future.
What does Republican ideology have to do with my comment? How does that make my comment have no basis in reality. Also, I will not reconsider believing or sharing my own opinions in the future. I'm quite sure my freedom of speech is covered.
Note that my comment has since been upvoted, so at least I'm not the only one on hn who has read the constitution.
Your comment was in reply to one about the Republican candidate's inconsistent behavior when it comes to healthcare reform, defending it as an example of states' rights. But Republicans want government's hands off their Medicare at the state level as well.
Do you understand what "state's rights" means? It means that the states are free to make up their mind on a matter without the federal government interfering.
You are also confusing one person with a whole party. Just because he is running as a Republican, does not in fact mean that every Republican agrees with him on every issue. He is by all account a very moderate Republican.
Some Republicans might support have a state health care law similar to the one in Mass. Clearly Romney did. Many others would not in fact support that. That is their right. It is also somebody else's right to "want government's hands off their Medicare at the state level." That is a perfectly valid opinion, and it can be debated at the state level.
1865 called. Said that States lost.
2006 called. Gov. Romney supports ObamaCare^WRomneyCare.
2012 Supreme Court called as well. Said ObamaCare was constitutional.
I would say 1964 is a bigger milestone. The Civil Rights Act was upheld (under the commerce clause), and its enforcement was successfully carried out with federal troops, once and for all putting down "states' rights", generally for the good.
1865 - Slavery was something that states shouldn't have the right to. They also shouldn't allow stealing, murder, etc. Turns out after the Civil War we didn't in fact repeal the 10th amendment.
2006 - No, as for a state and nationally are 2 different things. But even if he did, why should that matter here. I never said anything about Romeney, I don't really like him, and he most certainly was not my choice in the primaries.
2012 - now that is a pretty good point. I think they were wrong, but that is neither here nor there. For now I'll just have to deal with it, but that doesn't mean I can't support Congress repealing it, which they are perfectly capable of. Alternately, I can hope for a future non-Democrat court to actually read the constitution and overturn this recent decision.
(Alternately we could amend the constitution and actually add language that makes socialist healthcare part of it. while i wouldn't support it, that would in fact be preferable to me.)
Slavery is not an enumerated right, to control or to tax, for federal powers listed in the Constitution. Therefore it should fall to the states, or their respective citizens. A war was fought over this very issue. States lost. Get over it.
Functionally, Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Law is similar to Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. One is state law, and the other one federal law. Questions were abound if PPACA was constitutional. SCOTUS said YES 5-4.
Quote: "Alternately, I can hope for a future non-Democrat court to actually read the constitution and overturn this recent decision."
Oh, and I believe the swing vote was Chief Justice John Roberts. Wasn't he a conservative justice, nominated by George W. Bush, after William Rehnquist passed? Facts are pesky things, aren't they?
A war was fought over the issue, and we decided to add that particular issue to the constitution through the amendment process that the founders allowed for in the constitution. It turns out, that after the war, we didn't repeal the 10th. That's totally still there - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_S...
Facts are pesky things, aren't they?
And Reagan appointed Kennedy. What's your point?
I see you also skipped over the part where I'd be ok with amending the constitution to add it. I wouldn't support it, but I'd be ok with it if it actually passed.
> Slavery is not an enumerated right, to control or to tax, for federal powers listed in the Constitution.
So? It is not in a paper composed 200+ years ago that we somehow feel the need to worship and treat it like a set of magic tablets given to Moses on a mountain or something.
Aren't the citizens supposed to be able to change and update that as they see fit, isn't that even more in the spirit of Founding Fathers than say just to continuously point a 200+ year old paper
Don't get too caught up in it. Fights over Constitutionally "enumerated" rights are simply code words for ignoring the 9th amendment. i.e. the framers of the Constitution knew that they could not possibly enumerate all rights from the get go and were bound to make mistakes (especially since most of the rights they were enumerating had not been traditionally recognized before).
The Framers did not intend that the first eight amendments be construed to exhaust the basic and fundamental rights.... I do not mean to imply that the .... Ninth Amendment constitutes an independent source of rights protected from infringement by either the States or the Federal Government....While the Ninth Amendment - and indeed the entire Bill of Rights - originally concerned restrictions upon federal power, the subsequently enacted Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the States as well from abridging fundamental personal liberties. And, the Ninth Amendment, in indicating that not all such liberties are specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments, is surely relevant in showing the existence of other fundamental personal rights, now protected from state, as well as federal, infringement. In sum, the Ninth Amendment simply lends strong support to the view that the "liberty" protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments from infringement by the Federal Government or the States is not restricted to rights specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments. Cf. United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 94-95. - Justice Arthur Goldberg
In all honesty, I was just arguing with a libertarian with a strong constitutionalist mindset. And he finally got 'it' with the
" In other news, I'm up far later than I want to be debating something I have almost no control over, with someone who describes himself as an idiot."
comment. I was doing this in the middle of designing a platform and motor for my 3d scanner.
Complete aside: I believe I can modify the source for MakerBot Scanner so it can scan rooms as well as individual objects. It'd be really spiffy to print panoramic pictures of a room. Call it an early work in progress. I'll publish soon-ish.
